An optimal partition problem for eigenvalues (Q2642689)

For a bounded, smooth domain \(\Omega\) in \(\mathbb R^n\), the authors study the problem of finding \(m\) disjoint subsets \(\Omega_j\) such that \(\overline \Omega = \bigcup \overline \Omega_j\) and the sum \(\sum \lambda_1( \Omega_j )\) is minimized. Here, \(\lambda_1( \Omega_j )\) denotes the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian on \(\Omega_j\) with Dirichlet boundary data. It is shown that such a minimizing partition exists and that the interfaces are regular.